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She may be dressed in a fluorescent T-shirt and holding a sign that reads “Spendshi $100 million,” but Christine Spenceley confesses that she’s a bit out of her element.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” says the southwest resident as she gathers with friends Margaret Jensen and Linda Nudd outside the city’s municipal building. “None of us have, but we just feel like our voices aren’t being heard.”

Over the lunch hour on Wednesday, more than 100 other Calgarians join Spencely and her friends to don fluorescent T-shirts and hold protest signs. They’re here to speak out against city council’s plans for a southwest bus rapid transit route, on the same day the RouteAhead rapid transit corridors update is going before the city’s standing policy committee on transportation and transit.

For those not up to date on the controversies surrounding the southwest BRT, it’s not exaggerating to describe the situation between some residents and city council as tense. Back in February, a group called Ready to Engage participated in a public meeting with city representatives; some city personnel reported being verbally and physically assaulted by angry residents, a charge that led Mayor Naheed Nenshi to cancel face-to-face consultations and accuse the group of being “un-Calgarian.”

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While the incident didn’t result in criminal charges, the verbal jabs between the mayor and Ready to Engage spokespeople since the incident have kept things simmering.

Opponents of a plan to build a southwest bus-rapid-transit lane gather at a rally at City Hall today.Jim Wells/Jim Wells/Postmedia

By the time the Ready to Engage folks are gathering for their rally, both sides are savouring victories in the ongoing battle: the city, for the report showing that more than 30 per cent of the 3,390 signatures on a petition against the southwest BRT program are invalid after not fulfilling legislative requirements; and the Ready to Engage members, for the updated city report showing the transitway’s projected cost of $40 million could now cost up to $66 million.

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While my city hall reporting colleagues are charged with writing about the intricacies of the issue, on this day I’m assigned to gauge the mood of the various people assembled, both pro and con and everything in between.

Now, the steps outside our municipal building is an area available for groups to gather for protest and other activities, booked ahead of time with city officials — as Ready to Engage has on this day.

From the get go, the scene is a circus, but not because of the prime reason so many are gathered here for.

Moments before the rally gets underway, the several police on hand — uniformed officers and others dressed in all black — have arrested two young men. One of them, it seems, ran up to a TV reporter filing his advance story and yelled out that childish, pornographic phrase that resulted in the arrests of many a young man across North America over the past couple of years.

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Meanwhile, a couple of smiling young men stroll up and down the sidewalk — past police, past Ready to Engage protesters, past the lonely table where pro-transit lobby #ILoveYYCTransit has set up its petition — wearing marijuana flags as capes. Yes, it’s also 4-20 day, the pro-weed gathering slated for a little later in the afternoon.

As group spokesman Doug Fraser begins to speak into his megaphone to the gathered crowd of fellow BRT protesters, local blogger Mike Morrison drowns him out by yelling phrases such as, “We’re not all wealthy,” and accusing those present of intimidating the public.

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Morrison later tweeted that he was “hit with signs, shoved, pushed, yelled at and called names.” I was standing in the crowd near the protest provocateur and, if a physical assault did happen, I didn’t see it.

In talking to the @Ready2EngageYYC group, I got hit with signs, shoved, pushed, yelled at and called names. What a scary group of people.

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What I did see, though, was Morrison’s friend, Colin Smith, stick around to engage in a very civil discussion with three other Ready to Engage protesters after the TV cameras had moved on, a conversation that concluded after several minutes with the men all shaking hands.

Watching all this, Paul Finkleman sighs. “You know, my daughter takes the bus,” says the longtime volunteer with the Braeside Community Association. “I rode my bike here today to protest. We’re not saying no, we just want the city to reassess.”

As Finkleman speaks, a woman just behind him addresses a group of children. “Why do you think they are wearing bright orange and yellow?” she asks her school class of curious kids.

“Because they want people to notice them?” says one child. “Yes,” says the teacher. “That’s an important part of a protest, to be noticed — and heard.”

On this day, that goal is accomplished, for those on both sides, and everyone in between.

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